Christian Brand
Doctoral Student

Tel:
Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 4722
Email: christian.brand@student.manchester.ac.uk

 	 
	CCSR
	School of Social Sciences
	Kantorovich Building
	Humanities Bridgeford Street
	University of Manchester
	MANCHESTER
	M13 9PL
	

I joined CCSR in October 2002 as an ESRC and University of Manchester funded "1+3" MSc student (Social Research Methods & Statistics). My previous education includes first degrees in Business Economics (Nürnberg, Germany) and Business Studies (Leeds Metropolitan), as well as an MA (Econ) in Sociology (Manchester). Apart from researching for a PhD, I have been working as research assistant and teaching fellow in CCSR since September 2003.

I am supervised by Prof. Ed Fieldhouse (CCSR) and Prof. Alan Warde (Sociology) In September 2006 I went as a visiting scholar to the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where I'm now staying while writing up my thesis.

Research Interests

• Social reporting & individual welfare research
• Social surveys & quality of life indicators
• Neoliberalism & the empirical testing of its claims
• The Nordic social model / & Germany's social market economy / The European social model and its challenges
• Ecological economics

The working title of my topic is:

I am grateful for the financial support I have been granted to realise this project: ESRC (1+3 "fees only" studentship), University of Manchester (University Research Studentship)

Aims & Approach

• To answer the seemingly trivial question of how the societal level of welfare has been changing in Britain.
• To do so from different theoretical and methodological angles and highlight the importance of doing so.
• To evaluate the commonality of various theoretical approaches in North-Western Europe with a view towards proposing a generic ‘theory’ (or at least a pragmatic model) of individual welfare.
• To operationalise a limited number of individual welfare approaches using the British Household Panel Survey.
• To synthesise the findings and discuss their usefulness for social reporting in the contemporary British context as well as the implications for future survey development

Background

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) masquerades as an indicator of social welfare and progress in general, although it was not designed to be more than a limited measure of economic output. Various strands of research have proposed genuine measures of so-called social or national welfare. Most of those, however, are either modifications of GDP or equally problematic aggregate measures that, at best, provide only very limited insight into the living conditions at the micro-level. The so-called Nordic Level of Living tradition, on the other hand, focuses on measuring ‘objective’ living conditions at the micro-level, i.e. by means of representative social surveys. In fact, this is only one of various comparable but independently developed approaches focusing on the notion of multidimensional individual welfare. Social reporting with a view towards comprehensive description of a society’s general welfare level has become a prominent task of survey research in continental North-Western Europe. Inspired by the aforementioned intellectual camp, the Netherlands even has a three-decade-long tradition of using a welfare index as a social policy tool: the ‘Leefsituatie’ Index. The UK possesses a wealth of similar micro-data that, in principle, could be used in the same way for comprehensive social reporting purposes

Papers and Publications

Using the British Household Panel Survey for composite indices of individual welfare Paper presented at 1st EASR conference, Barcelona, 18-22 July 2005.

How is individual welfare distributed in Britain? Paper presented at BHPS 2005 conference, Colchester, 30/06-02/07 2005

In search of a multidimensional and micro-data based perspective in social reporting: a cluster analysis of 'Lebenslagen' and social change using the British Household Panel Survey. Paper presented at International Sociological Association, Research Committee 28 (RC28) on Social Stratification and Mobility, Oslo Meeting, May 5-8, 2005 PDF.

On the distribution of individual welfare from the 'Lebenslagen' perspective: a new technique applied to an old concept; Paper presented at 16th ISA World Congress of Sociology, Durban, 23-29 July 2006